WHODUNNIT

Dashwanth acquittal in rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl exposes sloppy probe, mishandling of evidence and poor understanding of forensic techniques

- RAJALAKSHMI SAMPATH & SIDDHARTH PRABHAKAR @ Chennai

A few kilometres west of the Chennai international airport, Madhanandhapuram is just another quiet locality of regular middleclass families of IT employees and government servants engaged in their daily routines without courting attention.

Eight years ago, a two-storey apartment block at the dead-end of a narrow lane in the area suddenly gained infamy when a sevenyear-old girl living there went missing and was later found dead. She was raped and murdered, police said, by a neighbour she called 'anna'- a 22-year-old youth residents remember as the lanky boy who walked his dog on the street every day.

Overturning the 2018 Madras High Court and Chengalpattu district court judgments which convicted and sentenced Dashwanth to death, the SC freed him, saying the Mangadu police, which investigated the case - with inspectors N Ravikumar (until April 21, 2017) and RD Vivekanandan (from April 22, 2017) as investigating officers - had bungled up so badly that acquittal was the only choice.

Two days after the verdict, a visit by TNIE to Madhanandhapuram found many residents living here in 2017 had moved out. Dashwanth's apartment was locked, with metal grilles gathering rust and a bank notice demanding unpaid loan dues pasted on the wall collecting dust. A family living in what was then the victim's apartment has little idea about the incident and requested to be left alone.

For old-timers though, the verdict brought back unpleasant memories they had chosen to forget. Everyone is united in shock and astonishment at the verdict.

VS Sreedharan (86) remembers Dashwanth's family well. "His mother looked so gentle. She always has vibhuti (sacred ash) on her head," he says, unaware that she too was murdered, and the alleged perpetrator, her son, was acquitted by the trial court citing another shoddy probe by the police.